


dance with me into the colors of the dusk

by scottgettheminivan (startofamoment)



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Childhood Friends, F/M, Fluff, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 16:05:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14168526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/startofamoment/pseuds/scottgettheminivan
Summary: Truthfully, they’ve known since the very first time they held hands on the ice.But they’re Scott and Tessa, so they dare resist the universe.





	dance with me into the colors of the dusk

**Author's Note:**

> LISTEN. After my brief stint posting on fanfiction.net when I was in 5th Grade, I didn't think I'd ever go back to writing for fandoms. And yet, a little over a year ago, I posted the first of many AUs for B99 – coincidentally also about soulmates. Today, I pop my RPF cherry with yet another soulmate AU because I'm absolute trash.

He's too young to understand what this all means, too young to know the right way to express himself, so instead he just frowns at her curiously. "Your eyes are weird."

Her face scrunches into a pout, bottom lip trembling. Scott groans inwardly, knowing that he’ll probably be grounded if he makes his new partner cry. He’d _really_ been looking forward to playing hockey with his friends that weekend.

Thankfully, the tears don’t come, but the seven year old does let go of his hand and yell for their coach’s attention. “Scott said my eyes are weird!” Beyond a shy hello, this might be the first real thing he’s ever heard her say. He’s impressed and horrified and ashamed all at the same time.

Aunt Carol skates over to them, and he braces himself for the worst. “Scotty, is that true? Why would you say that?”

“ _Because!_ They’re- uhm-” He chews the inside of his cheek, wracking his brain for the correct word. ( _Green_ is the one he’s looking for but isn’t yet part of his vocabulary. Before this, everything had just been black or white or some shade in between.) He huffs, exasperated. “ _I don’t know!_ ”

Aunt Carol gives him a pointed look, so he takes a moment and tries again. “They’re… not gray?” 

Their lesson gets completely derailed after that, his aunt apparently foregoing whatever plans she had in order to ask even more questions he can’t answer. 

“What color is my jacket?” “ _Uh-_ ”  
“What color is the ceiling?” “ _Well-”_  
“What colors do you see on that poster?” " _I don’t know!_ ” 

Tessa must be a lot smarter than he is because she finds better ways to respond. 

“Like his pants.”  
“Same as that wall.”  
“I see five colors!” 

The smile on Aunt Carol’s face grows larger with each of her replies. Tessa beams back, showing off the gap from her missing front teeth. Scott’s still not entirely sure what’s going on, but nobody seems to be angry anymore, so he thinks that _maybe_ he won’t be grounded for what he said earlier.

\---

Apparently, they’re “soulmates” – or at least that’s what his mom says between sobs. She’s got the two of them enveloped in a bone-crushing hug, somehow holding them tighter than she held him after he’d gotten lost in an amusement park. Tessa manages to tilt her head enough so she can look at him with wide, weird ( _green_ ) eyes. He’s glad he’s not alone in his confusion. 

\---

He was hoping that things would make more sense when their parents talk amongst themselves then sit the two of them down. Instead, they just get some vague spiel about how they’re “special friends” who are “always going to have each other” – _whatever that means._

Tessa nods along through everything and grins at what he presumes are all the right places.

Meanwhile, he’s still stumped and beyond frustrated. He nibbles on his nails for a bit before sighing loudly. “But you and Dad said that Danny and Charlie were always going to be there for me, and I never got to see colors with them! Why is a soulmate so special?”  

“Oh, sweetheart.” His mom shares a knowing look with Tessa’s. “You’re right, your brothers will always be there for you, or at least they’ll try to be. I know this might be hard for you to understand now because you and Tessa are just starting to get to know each other, but what the two of you have is much, much different.”  

Scott’s eyebrows are still knitted together when he glances in Tessa’s direction. She offers him a small smile, and that somehow makes him smile too.

His mom leans down to kiss his forehead and ruffle his hair. “We’ll tell you more when you’re older.”

\---

It turns out that “older” does _not_ mean one day older, or one week older, or even one month older. Apparently, no matter how many times he says please or offers to do extra chores, he’s not going to get much more information out of his parents.

It’s after hearing the umpteenth variation of _“Just focus on your skating for now, and be nice to Tessa. Okay, Scotty?”_ that he decides to change tactics.

In hindsight, he really should’ve gone straight to his oldest brother. The last time Scott had gotten stuck on his math homework, he went to Danny. When he accidentally knocked over his mom’s favorite lamp, he went to Danny. When his friends made fun of him for going to figure skating practice instead of playing hockey, he went to Danny. His brother seemed to have an answer for everything, and Scott figured he’d know a thing or two about soulmates even if he did still see in grayscale.

Given all the build up and mystery, it’s almost anticlimactic when he finally does learn the truth. Danny’s so nonchalant about it, not even turning away from his video game. “Soulmates? Oh, yeah, that just means that you two are going to get married one day.”

Weirdly, it feels like someone’s simultaneously taken a heavy backpack off his shoulders and hit him in the stomach with a hockey stick. He wants to yell at Danny for being so indifferent, for seeming like he doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation, but he knows no one else will tell him anything until probably his 50th birthday. He can’t bite the hand that feeds him, at least not before getting a few more questions answered. “Married like Mom and Dad?”

“Mhm.”

“Me and Tutu are going to get _married_?”

“Yup.”

 --- 

He updates her at their next training session, while they’re stroking around the rink. Over the last month, they’ve bonded over trying to piece everything together, which, given that they never had much to go by, has really just meant trading ideas and seeing who could come up with the funniest theory.

(Three days ago, Scott suggested that maybe they were aliens from the same planet, destined to find each other so they could make their way back home. Tessa giggled so much that Aunt Carol made them take a break from doing laps. It made him feel kind of guilty for getting her in trouble, but his chest swelled at being able to make her laugh.)

“Okay, so, Danny told me we’re supposed to get married because we’re soulmates.” He looks at her for some sort of reaction, but her gaze is trained on the ice ahead of them. He clears his throat before proceeding. “Do you, uh, want to do that next weekend or is five years from now better? I don’t know anything about weddings.”

Tessa hums but doesn’t say anything for a moment. As he waits and listens to the sound of their blades on the ice, Scott thinks he probably should’ve asked his brother more questions. Like when and how people get married.

“I think we’re going out of town next weekend,” Tessa finally says. “And I think my sister told me that people date before they get married.”

So it’s decided: _they’re dating._

_\---_

It’s silly because Tessa has reverted to only saying up to three words to him at a time while he’s now incapable of looking at her.

(Well, he _could_ look at her, but then he’d end up just staring, too distracted by her bright green eyes and light brown freckles and soft pink cheeks. – Ever since his mother introduced him to all the colors of the rainbow, he’s liked describing things appropriately, if only because none of his brothers can do so.)

It’s even sillier because both their families and probably the entire Ilderton Skating Club has heard about their little relationship. The two of them have been unable to walk five steps without being cooed at or getting their cheeks pinched.

\---

Scott doesn’t really know anything about being a boyfriend, which isn’t a surprise considering he doesn’t really know anything about anything. He’s been having to rely solely on his brothers and cousins, who’ve been varying degrees of helpful. The one common theme in the hodgepodge of advice he’s gotten is flowers; he’s meant to give her flowers.

The problem, of course, is that he has no way of getting her flowers. He’s been told not to pick the tall yellow ones from their neighbor’s garden. He doesn’t have nearly enough allowance to buy her a colorful bunch from the store. He can’t even go to the store without asking an adult to bring him over there, and he doesn’t really want to explain himself. (“I need you to drive me over so I can buy pretty flowers for my pretty soulmate, who I’m apparently meant to marry someday, and I also need some cash, thanks–” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.)

The opportunity of a lifetime presents itself at the Ilderton Skating Carnival: there, right by the boards, was a bucket full of flowers. Each skater was meant to get a bouquet, and he felt like it was his rightful place to hand Tessa hers.

He grabs the brightest bunch, the one with pinks and purples and yellows and whites because he knows for a fact that she’s going to appreciate all the different colors, then waits for her to come out of the dressing room.

Five minutes later, she’s bursting out of the door, about to rush over to her coach. “Hi Scott! My number’s next!”

“I know! I just- I wanted to give you- uh-” He thrusts the flowers into her hand and swiftly kisses her on the cheek. “Good luck out there, Tutu.”

Her whole face flushes as she beams at him and stutters out a thank you.

His heart soars, and he thinks that maybe he could get used to this whole dating thing.

\---

When their parents told them that what they had was different, he assumed they meant it in a good way.

Really, for the most part, it’s been great. They barely look at or talk to each other, but skating with Tessa has been so much fun. He especially likes when she giggles at his jokes or points out random colors around the rink. He likes that they’re both able to see in color, even if he still doesn’t get the difference between teal and turquoise.

As far as he knows, none of the other kids at his school can see colors. It made him feel so special at first, but lately it’s been outright frustrating.

He’d be talking about his weekend at the lunch table and have to backtrack because none of his friends understood the joy of seeing leaves change from green to red. He’d ask his classmate to fetch the blue jacket he left in their room, only to realize that those instructions meant nothing to them. Worst of all, he’d try to explain just how he went from seeing in grayscale to _this_ , and then he’d have to field questions about soulmates, about Tessa.

“You have a _girlfriend_?” It’s not the first time he’s heard this from one of his buddies, their nose all scrunched up in distaste.

Scott just shrugs, trying to ignore the part of him that shrivels up. If he’d known this sleepover would turn into an interrogation, he wouldn’t have begged his parents to let him go. “Uh- yeah, she’s my soulmate.”

His friends look up from their game to stare at him. “You know that’s super weird right?”

“I- _It’s not_. My parents are soulmates. Your parents are soulmates. Tess and I aren’t weird.”

“Our parents are _grown-ups_. We’re all just kids. Do you see any of us with soulmates? Do you see anyone at school with soulmates?”

He chews on his nails, feeling his resolve crumble. “... No.”

They lead him over to the phone and force him to dial Tessa’s number. He takes the phone from them with trembling hands. 

“I don’t want to go out with you anymore,” he blurts out quickly. His friends nod approvingly and motion for him to hang up. He’s just about to do so when her soft voice carries through the receiver.

_“I thought we were soulmates.”_

“We are! But-” He glances to his friends again. “Maybe we’re a different kind of soulmates. Remember what our parents said? We’re special. What we have is different.” He’s not sure he completely believes this himself, but it feels like the right thing to say at the moment. 

Tessa’s quiet on the other end, and he hopes it’s because she’s nodding, not trying to stop tears from falling.

“Maybe,” she says finally. “You’re right. We’re different.”

Scott lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “See you at practice, Tutu?”

“See you at practice, Scott.”  

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to yell at me in the comments or on tumblr @scottgettheminivan!


End file.
